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Practical ways to assure improved animal care

on the farm Dairy stories

Anne Marie de Passillé, Elsa Vasseur, Jenny Gibbons

and Jeff Rushen Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

What we will cover using dairy as an example

•  Examples from Sweden : 4 tools that producers are buying •  Calf tool : Home grown! Sold by Valacta, available free on line •  Cow comfort tool : in development in

Canada (Cluster project: DFC-AAFC)

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Tools for improved animal welfare in Swedish dairy

production

Swedish Dairy Association

Charlotte Hallén Sandgren, Louise Winblad von

Walter and Jonas Carlsson

Some facts about Swedish milk production

•  5400 dairy herds, 64 cows/herd, 9491 kg FCM

•  84 percent of the cows are in the milk recording system

•  Cattle database include all the records for livestock, production, fertility, diseases, culling, mortality, etc

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4 SwedishTools Time 1.  Animal Welfare Signals 5 minutes 2.  Ask the cow 2-3hr 3.  Health Package Milk 15-20hrs 4.  Focus Dairy Health and Milk 1 day

Animal Welfare Signals

Enables the farmer to easily get an overall picture of the animal welfare

situation on their farm

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“Animal welfare signals” and “Ask the cow”

Objectives:

improve the knowledge and understanding of animal welfare

among farmers and their employees

Animal Welfare Signals

Calves Heifers Calving Feed Diseases Management Longevity

50% 40% 10%

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2-6 Indicators Disease freq. Fertility Mortality Culling

Calves Heifers Calving Feed Diseases Management Longevity

Use of Animal welfare signals

•  75 % of the farmers use Welfare Signals

•  Tool to allocate advisory service to dairy farms at risk of “poor welfare”,

•  Tool to give approval to dairy farms with “good welfare”

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Ask the cow

Advisory animal welfare service with animal based measurements

•  Trained assessors •  Two courses - website

•  ”Calibration courses” every 2nd year

Photo: Helena Elmqvist

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Ask The Cow – Animal based measurement on-farm

Cows (individual) •  Body condition •  Clean/dirty •  Injuries •  Lameness

Cows (herd) •  Stall standing index •  Positive behavior •  Negative behavior •  Water access

…and also measurements for calves and young stock

Ask The Cow – Welfare-flower

Young stock and Calves Cows

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Cows Young stock Calves

Plan of improvement

Dirty

Severe injuries

Lying outside

Stand Thin

Fat

Long claws

Assym. Claws injuries

Very dirty Lameness

Raising behaviour

Ask the cow The Swedish Seal of Quality based on meeting Ask the cow standards for quality assurance • KRAV- certification for organic production may use Ask the cow.

BRANDING

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Two more Swedish Animal Welfare services:

”Health Package Milk”

• Strategic advisory veterinary service • Specially trained veterinarians

”Focus Dairy Health and Milk” • Workshops with owner and employees • Motivation through education • On farm – near the animals

• Practical excercises

These 4 tools can help the farmer : •  secure animal welfare •  improve cow performance •  get profitability •  AND keep consumers trust

This is why the producers are buying these tools

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An advisory tool to improve calf rearing practices and animal welfare

on-farm

A promising approach! Funded by the dairy producers of Quebec

Elsa Vasseur, J. Rushen, A. M. de Passillé, D. Lefebvre, and D. Pellerin

An advisory tool for calf

rearing

Got producer approval when

tested on farms

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The visit: 2-3hr

•  An interview with the producer to document management practices

•  Record information in the barn on housing and environment

•  Could not get INFORMATION ON CALF HEALTH

•  Scores given for each aspect of calf rearing based on extent that targets were reached. Recommendations provided about how to improve practices

We asked producers questions

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We took measures in the barn

•  We provided colostrometers

•  Producers measured colostrum quality

Producers also took measurements!

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Examples of scoring Examples of scoring

We discussed the scoring with the producers and explained the recommendations

Producers participated actively in this and liked it

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Producers had adopted recommandations after one visit,

6 months later

Before 6 mo later

Recording mortality & morbidity

36 % 75 %

0 % 29 % Use colostrometer

+39 %

+29 %

•  On the CRAAQ website:

http://www.agrireseau.qc.ca/bovinslaitiers/documents/Evaluate%20your%20Rearing%20Strategies.pdf

•  On the FAO animal

welfare website: http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/themes/

animal-welfare/aw-docum/training-material/detail/en/item/44370/icode/

The tool is availble free on line

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With this free tool, you can do:

• A self evaluation • A consultation and follow up with your advisor or veterinarian

• Valacta offers it as a service

Cow comfort tool

A collaborative project between

AAFC Laval University

Guelph University Calgary

UBC Valacta, Dairy herd improvement service for Eastern Canada

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Dairy farmers invest with AAFC

•  A new research initiative to develop and evaluate an advisory tool on cow confort

•  Includes targets based on the Code of Practice

•  240 Canadian farms •  Allows benchmarking •  Allows evaluation of links between measures

The tool

•  A management questionnaire •  Measures in the barn •  Measures on the cows •  A report •  Explanations of measures and

standards

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Lameness is a costly disease of dairy cows $300-$700 / case RECOMMENDED BEST PRACTICE: Routinely observe cows for lameness and aim for prevalence of <10% for obvious or severe lameness

We do locomotion scoring on the cows and use hoof trimming records

RECOMMENDED BEST PRACTICE: Build stalls that provide adequate room for cows to lay comfortably for at least 12 hours per day

We measure the size of stalls and record how long cows lay down

76 cm

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Relating inputs to outcomes

Cubicles too small

Less time spent lying down

Hard, concrete floors

Wet flooring

Hoof lesions

Lameness

Hock Injury: animal based measures

SCORE 0 SCORE 1 SCORE 2 SCORE 3

No Swelling. No hair is missing or

some hair loss

No Swelling or minor swelling (< 1 cm). Bald area on hock

Medium swelling (1-2.5 cm) and/or lesion on bald area.

Major swelling (> 2.5 cm). May have

bald area/lesion.

Taking animal based measures requires a detailed scoring system and extensive training of

assessors

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A training program to ensure high

repeatability of injury and BCS of dairy cows Training was essential, some people cant do some measures, need extra

training along the way to ensure quality control.

Producer Report

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Advantages of advisory tools

•  Advise producers on means of improving animal care and profitability

•  Help advisors do the job with most up to date information

•  The data base from the 240 farms in our project can be used by industry to benchmark

•  The data base can be used to identify the key measures that need to be included in an audit

What comes after the

Code?

A means of assuring the public / consumers that Canadian farms follow

these standards

ACAM

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If we did on farm assessments

•  Develop and Implement on farm advisory tools

•  Train advisors, veterinarians, others to ensure equity across the land

•  Identify farms that need support and advise them of the tool

•  Once we are ready implement on farm audits of some kind

Things are happening

Sobeys has a new app!

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Questions?

Other tools

•  Welfare Quality for pigs, poultry, veal, etc •  Pig assessment in Canada •  Poultry assessment in Canada •  Dairy locomotion in Bristol, a national

effort •  Sweden: RASP (piglet); Broilers; Laying

Hens